The Killing Floor

[David Von Pein]

18 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

I thought Life magazine printed a pic of the sack; grease stains and all

Here's the picture I think you're referring to:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184773/

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:34 AM, Roger Odisio said:

Remarkable film.  But one thing bothered me, that doesn't lessen the powerful impact of all that Negrete says.

It's the acceptance of the second floor lunch room encounter as if it really happened, rather being a concoction by the WC to try to place him where he could have been after shooting from the 6th floor.

In his first interrogation, Oswald said he went to the second floor to buy a coke to have *with* his lunch  He then ate his lunch on the first floor.  Then he went outside to see the P parade.

So where is there room for Oswald to be confronted by Truly and Baker getting a coke on the second floor *after* the murder?  Did he eat his lunch after the murder?  Or maybe he was lying about his whole alibi.

But presumably Negrete and Ernest (and I) don't believe either version.  They have established thru the original testimony of the women, before it was changed, lied about, or ignored, that Oswald never came down those steps after the murder.

So believe the lunch room encounter fabrication if you want--that Oswald with a coke ran into Truly and Baker on the second floor *after* the murder.  If he wasn't on the 6ht floor when the shots were fired and didn't come down those stairs after the murder, it doesn't matter.  He wasn't an assassin.

The film would have been cleaner and stronger if Negrete had deleted references to the lunch room encounter and stuck to the straightforward story.  It's still a blockbuster.

Next up for Negrete?  Looking into the Darnell film to finish the job of establishing where Oswald was at the time of the murder.

 

 

 

 

All true, Roger.

We all agree (Dave Von Pein loudly excepted) that our man "Oswald" did NOT run down the stairs from the sixth floor after the shooting.

Whatever the origin of the 2nd floor lunchroom encounter story, there is no doubt in my mind that Baker did indeed confront a suspect near the stairs inside the TSBD on about the "3rd or 4th floor."

After all, that is exactly what Baker wrote in his first day affidavit late in the afternoon of the 22nd. Baker, as we all know, wrote that affidavit describing the suspect while he, Baker, could see our "Oswald" in plain view in Fritz's office at that very moment. Yet Baker did NOT identify our "Oswald" as the suspect he confronted inside the TSBD! Instead, Baker went to some length to provide a physical description of the man - not "Oswald" - he confronted.

Why?

Because Baker believed that the man he confronted, the man vouched for by Truly, was in fact, a conspirator, one who was still on the loose. 

There is no other possible explanation for why Baker wrote what he wrote on the afternoon in Fritz's office. 

[Affidavit of M. L. Baker, November 22, 1963] - Page 1 of 2 - The Portal to Texas History (unt.edu)

[Ron Ege]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

 

 

Sandy, thanks.

I do remember reading same, now.  

I will admit, rather convincing.

My take is that Oswald was 'hornswoggled" that day.

That morning, he may have thought he knew all there was to know - but in reality, he didn't know what he didn't know.

Thus, the trip to apartment and then to the theatre, in a quest to find out what he didn't know before.

 

 

 

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:23 AM, Pat Speer said:

At one point, I absorbed all the testimony regarding what happened in the building and noticed a disgusting pattern.

From patspeer.com, Chapter 4:

 

A Quick Review: the Suspicious Omissions (and Commissions, with a Few New Additions) in Chronological Order

From reviewing the suspicious omissions, and placing them in chronological order, one can get a sense of where the Commission went astray. It went astray because it wasn't willing to get it right. It seems clear, moreover, that, prior to taking any testimony, Messieurs Ball and Belin had already decided to push a scenario in which Oswald stayed upstairs during lunchtime and raced downstairs after the shooting, and Jack Dougherty rode the elevator from the fifth floor on down as Baker and Truly raced up the stairs to the fifth floor.

12-20-63. The FBI omits from a report on an interview with Eddie Piper that Piper feels certain he saw Oswald on the first floor around 12:00.

March 64--September 64. The Warren Commission fails to call Carolyn Arnold to testify, even though she told FBI investigators on 11-26-63 that she believed she saw Oswald on the first floor around 12:15.

March 64--September 64. The Warren Commission fails to call Carolyn Walther to testify, even though she told FBI investigators on 12-4-63 that she saw a man with a rifle on an upper floor of the school book depository, and that there was another man behind him, to his left.

March 1964--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to call Lillian Mooneyham to testify, even though she told the FBI on 1-8-64 that she saw a man standing in the sniper's nest at a time the Commission presumes Oswald to have been running down the back stairs.

March 1964--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to call Sandra Styles to testify, even though she could confirm Vickie Adams' claim she raced down the back stairs just after the shooting and didn't see Oswald.

March 1964--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to follow-up on the Secret Service's interviews of Pierce Allman and Terry Ford, in which they placed themselves near the back of the building at the time the commission presumed Adams and Styles had raced down the back stairs.

3-11-64. In a desperate attempt at getting them to change their recollection of the size of the bag they saw Oswald carrying on the morning of the 22nd (which they remembered as being too small to hold the rifle found in the school book depository) Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball asks Buell Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle to hold their hands apart to demonstrate the length of the bag. He then asks them to do this again, and again, at least ten times, according to Frazier, giving them the feeling he won't stop asking until they lie and tell him the bag was longer than they believed it was.

3-24-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to follow up with witness Harold Norman and find out how his not playing dominoes at lunch made him think someone else was in the room--an inquiry that would almost certainly have led to Norman's saying he thought this someone else was Oswald.

3-24-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to point out during testimony or subsequently acknowledge that James Jarman and Harold Norman's claim they re-entered the building via the back door towards the end of their lunch time supported Oswald's claim he'd been sitting in a room with a view of the back door area during lunch time, and had observed Jarman and Norman.

3-25-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to follow-up on Officer Marrion Baker's claim he saw two white men by the elevators when he came into the building with Oswald's boss Roy Truly, at a time when no white men besides Baker and Truly were known to be on the first floor.

4-1-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin argues with witness Ronald Fischer about the color of the hair of the man Fischer saw staring out the window of the sniper's nest. According to Fischer, Belin tries to "intimidate" him, because Oswald's hair was not as light as the hair of the man Fischer saw, and he "wanted me to tell him that the man was dark-headed and I wouldn't do it." (Note: this was detailed in a December 1978 Dallas Morning News article by Earl Golz.)

4-7-64--Warren Commission attorney David Belin shows Vickie Adams a diagram of the first floor depicting where she claimed she saw Lovelady and Shelley, but fails to enter this diagram into evidence.

4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Billy Lovelady any of a number of relevant questions regarding Eddie Piper and Jack Dougherty's actions after the shooting.

4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball also fails to ask Lovelady if he saw Roy Truly and Officer Baker by the elevators, and whether or not he could be one of the white men observed by Baker.

4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball asks William Shelley if he saw Roy Truly enter the depository building, but fails to ask him the more important question if he saw Truly and officer Baker by the elevators, and whether or not he could be one of the white men observed by Baker.

4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask William Shelley any of a number of relevant questions regarding Eddie Piper and Jack Dougherty's actions after the shooting.

4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission's diagrams for the first floor of the school book depository strangely fail to include the west loading dock, through which Shelley and Lovelady re-entered the building, which was presumably left unsecured for some time after the shooting.

4-7-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to interview Gloria Calvery and re-enact the actions of William Shelley and Billy Lovelady after the shooting (in order to develop a timeline for Shelley and Lovelady's return to the building, which is essential to their assessing the credibility of Vickie Adams), even though Ball and Belin know from their testimony that Shelley and Lovelady's sense of time for the moments immediately following the shooting are at odds with the re-enactments Ball and Belin had already performed.

4-7-64--September 1964. Ball and Belin fail to consult newsreel footage which could help them establish the timing of Shelley and Lovelady's walk around the building, which could, in turn, help them establish the credibility of Vickie Adams' claim she ran down the back stairs just after the shooting, and saw Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor.

4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to ask Joe Molina about Vickie Adams even though it has reason to suspect he would confirm Adams' claim she was outside on the front steps within a few minutes of the shooting.

4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to ask Mrs. Avery Davis about Vickie Adams even though it has reason to suspect she would confirm Adams' claim she was outside on the front steps within a few minutes of the shooting.

4-7-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to follow-up and establish the identity of a policeman observed by Vickie Adams just after the shooting, even though the identification of this policeman could help the Commission establish the veracity of Miss Adams' claim she raced down the back stairs just after the shooting, and didn't see Oswald.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to follow-up and clarify the record when Charles Givens testifies to leaving his coat in the domino room upon his arrival at work, but then going back up to the sixth floor to get his jacket after everyone else had left for lunch--a brand new addition to Givens' story that allowed Belin and the Commission to place Oswald in the proximity of the sniper's nest shortly before the shooting.

4-8-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to point out in testimony or subsequently acknowledge that Givens' new story was in conflict with both his previous recollections, and that of his co-workers.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin goes against the precedent established during the testimony of Bonnie Ray Williams and others and allows Charles Givens to dispute the claims of an FBI report--without putting the source of these claims on the record.

4-8-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to follow-up with Givens' 11-22-63 lunch partner, Edward Shields, to see if he will confirm Givens' claim he saw Oswald on the sixth floor around 11:55.

4-8-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin, the man behind a number of re-enactments, fails to re-enact Givens' purported sighting of Oswald, to see if Givens could actually have seen Oswald where he said he saw him.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Eddie Piper where on the first floor he saw Oswald at 12:00, and thereby conceals from the Commission and public that Piper felt certain he saw Oswald just where Oswald said he was during the lunch period--in the domino room.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Eddie Piper about his discussion with Jack Dougherty, something that was desperately needed for the establishment of Dougherty as the passenger coming down in the west elevator after the shooting.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Jack Dougherty what time he came down for lunch, and thereby conceals that Dougherty had previously claimed he was on the sixth floor until 12, and would thereby have been on the sixth floor when Charles Givens claimed he last saw Oswald.

4-8-64. Warren Commission Attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Jack Dougherty if he called the west elevator to the first floor after lunch, or if it was on the ground floor waiting for him, something that Dougherty may not have remembered, but something that was of vital importance and needed to be asked.

4-8-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to test whether or not a rifle shot from the sixth floor sniper's nest window could have been heard by Jack Dougherty, standing near the opposite end of the building, as a sound coming from above him.

4-8-64--September 1964. Ball, Belin, and the Warren Commission fail to explore the possibility Dougherty went upstairs to work after the shooting, after someone else had taken the west elevator to the ground floor.

4-8-64--September 1964. Attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin and the Warren Commission as a whole fail to acknowledge that their conclusion Jack Dougherty rode the west elevator down to the first floor as Baker and Truly ran upstairs places Dougherty on the fifth floor by the west elevator as Oswald crossed an open stretch of floor before him.

4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin allows Dallas Police Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer to testify as though Charles Givens' new-found story (about seeing Oswald near the sniper's nest after everyone else had left the sixth floor) had been common knowledge on 11-22-63, when Belin knew this wasn't true.

5-13-64. Dallas Police Detective Jack Revill testifies in support of Givens' new-found story, and offers Dallas Police Detective V. J. Brian as a witness to his discussion with Givens, only to have Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin fail to ask Brian about Givens in testimony taken just after Revill dropped his smelly surprise.

5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball cuts off Eddie Piper after Piper volunteers that he has no idea who brought the elevators down just after the shots, and steers him to what he believes is a more productive course--that he failed to see Vickie Adams come down the stairs.

5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball not only fails to ask Eddie Piper the questions about Jack Dougherty he'd claimed in a memo needed to be asked, but uses the failure of Piper to provide answers to these never-asked questions as a means of discrediting him.

5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball inexplicably fails to ask William Shelley about Jack Dougherty's 4-8-64 testimony, in which Dougherty claimed Shelley had told him he saw Oswald with a large package on 11-22-63.

5-19-64. The February 17-18 statements of Vickie Adams, who claimed she raced down the stairs just after the shooting, and Otis Williams, who claimed he raced up to the fourth floor shortly after the shooting (and who later claimed he'd taken the back stairs up to the second floor just after the shooting), are inexplicably missing from a batch of statements taken by the Dallas Police that are only now provided the Warren Commission.

6-4-64--September 1964. Vickie Adams' boss, Dorothy Ann Garner, lets it be known she'd be willing to testify in support of Adams' and Styles' claim they raced down the stairs after the shooting, and goes one step further by claiming she saw Baker and Truly run up the stairs after Adams and Styles ran down the stairs...and is totally blown off by the Warren Commission...

June-64--September 1964. Chapter IV in the Commission's Final report is presented, approved, and sold to the public even though it includes an egregious lie, which, no surprise, helps sell Oswald's guilt. In support of the Commission's conclusion Vickie Adams was mistaken, and that Oswald did in fact race down the stairs within a minute of the shooting, the report claims: "Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of the Depository Building, claimed that within about 1 minute following the shots she ran from a window on the south side of the fourth floor, down the rear stairs to the first floor, where she encountered two Depository employees--William Shelley and Billy Lovelady. If her estimate of time is correct, she reached the bottom of the stairs before Truly and Baker started up, and she must have run down the stairs ahead of Oswald and would probably have seen or heard him..." It then strikes: "Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified that they... reentered the building by the REAR door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance".

So where was the lie? I sure hope you caught it.

It was the bit about Shelley and Lovelady re-entering the building through the REAR door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front door. While Shelley and Lovelady both struggled with their time estimates, and thereby helped the Commission in its effort to discredit Adams, they also were consistent in that they both testified--in the testimony the Commission cited by footnote to support they'd re-entered by the rear door, moreover-- to re-entering the building through the side door. By claiming they re-entered the building through the REAR door, instead of the side door, the commission had effectively doubled the distance the men were presumed to have covered in the "several minutes" of their estimate.

Great summary, Pat.

I've long suspected the 5th floor west elevator was the "getaway" vehicle for at least one of the sixth - floor conspirators, but you have raised the bar enormously. 

All of these failures by highly competent lawyers were not "oversights." These were deliberate omissions, designed to conceal rather than reveal the truth. 

The WC lawyers were afraid to ask the relevant questions lest testimony be introduced that would undermine the official, false, solution to the crime. 

[Tony Krome]

47 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Whatever the origin of the 2nd floor lunchroom encounter story, there is no doubt in my mind that Baker did indeed confront a suspect near the stairs inside the TSBD on about the "3rd or 4th floor."

More focus should be on whether Rowland's man could be Baker's man. A straight shot from the 4th floor stairs/elevator area is the 4th floor passenger elevator. Then we have Sawyer's mystery man nearby the passenger elevator on the 1st floor.

[Sandy Larsen]

45 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

On 10/14/2022 at 11:34 PM, Roger Odisio said:

Remarkable film.  But one thing bothered me,...

It's the acceptance of the second floor lunch room encounter as if it really happened, rather being a concoction by the WC to try to place him where he could have been after shooting from the 6th floor.

All true, Roger.

 

Exactly!

I was surprised to see so many people talking as though Oswald actually WAS on the second floor when Baker and Truly went by, and that Baker actually DID confront Oswald there. That's the reason I wrote up and posted the "The 2nd-Floor Baker/Oswald Encounter Has Been Debunked" thread earlier today. It's a shame that people waste their time thinking about something that never even happened.

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 minute ago, Tony Krome said:

More focus should be on whether Rowland's man could be Baker's man. A straight shot from the 4th floor stairs/elevator area is the 4th floor passenger elevator. Then we have Sawyer's mystery man nearby the passenger elevator on the 1st floor.

Yeah, I have long suspected that the WC failure to question Inspector Sawyer about the man exiting the passenger elevator as he, Sawyer, rushed in was a deliberate failure to pursue a lead. 

After all, Sawyer is in the building very quickly, and some unknown male is leaving the passenger elevator from an upper floor at that very moment. If that was an innocent employee, the WC would have tasked the FBI with tracking that man.

But the WC ignored this mystery man instead. 

Which leads to my own theory about the escape of the two sixth - floor conspirators: one took the west freight elevator down, and the other took the passenger elevator from the fourth floor down. (Now how that conspirator got to the fourth - floor passenger elevator on the east side of the TSBD is a topic for another thread.)

[Tony Krome]

7 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Yeah, I have long suspected that the WC failure to question Inspector Sawyer about the man exiting the passenger elevator as he, Sawyer, rushed in was a deliberate failure to pursue a lead. 

Mr. SAWYER. We got into the elevator. We run into this man ....... a man who I believed worked in the building.

This is right around 12:34

A minute before that, the mystery man could have been by the 4th floor elevator/ stairs

You'd think Belin would have been interested in a description of that man, that a police officer "ran" into, especially in those crucial minutes.

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 10/16/2022 at 11:42 AM, Roger Odisio said:

Stunning list, Pat.  But there is a bigger lie buried in there.  We now know Vicki Adams never said she saw Lovelady and Shelley on the first floor when she got there.  That was fabricated by the WC to discredit her.  In fact she hadn't know the WR said that and when shown by Ernest, she explicitly said she did *not* she them at that time on the first floor. 

Roger,

I'm not sold on that.

Yes, she explicitly told Barry Ernest 40 years after the fact that she did not see Shelley and Lovelady, and she now claimed that she never did, but consider:

She did mark up in 1964 the extant transcript of her testimony in which she was quoted about seeing Shelley and Lovelady. I have great regard for Barry Ernest, but honestly, he should have made her explain the 1964 transcript, the one with her handwriting on it. If it wasn't her handwriting, he should have made her say so. He did not. 

After all, her testimony had been part of the public record since 1964, and she never once told anyone the Shelley/Lovelady sighting was a complete lie by the WC until four decades later. 

She thought the WC disbelieved her because of the Shelley/Lovelady bit. What she didn't realize was that they were going to discredit her no matter what she said. For decades she stewed over the Shelley/Lovelady thing, unaware it was a red herring. After forty years, she'd convinced herself she'd never said it. 

On that minor point I think she was mistaken, but it doesn't really make much difference: we all agree that the WC was desperate to discredit her by any means necessary because their "solution" was to pin it all on "Oswald". And Victoria Adams (and Sandra Styles, and Dorothy Garner) stood in their way. 

 

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

Oswald gets to the 2nd floor after 48 sec.  He stops.  What to do next? 

Should he continue down to the first floor? 

Should he go to the first floor via the front stairs? 

Should he lay low in the lunch room? 

His jacket is in the Domino Room.

Uh Oh -- He hears Adams & Styles klomping down the stairs in a real hurry on a mission.

Best to visit the coke machine & hope that whoever it is goes clean past.

They pass. He comes back out. What to do next?

He can't decide.  He will be less conspicuous if he takes the front stairs, but he would then have to walk back into & throo the storage area to get his jacket in the Domino Room.

He decides to continue down the back stairs.

He makes a start but then Truly hollers up the elevator shaft, so he goes back up.

Then he hears Baker & Truly galloping up the stairs, & he retreats to the coke machine a second time.

He walks slow & cool. 

He would have been better off diving into the lunchroom in a hurry, & laying low, he knows there is no-one in there, but he knows that if seen rushing (by Truly & Co) it will be a sure sign that he is guilty of something.

He nearly makes it, another couple of slow steps & he will be out of sight.

But damn, Baker spots a bit of him throo the glass of the door & says to come back.

Truly says that Oswald works here, & Baker & Truly gallop off.

Oswald gets a coke to look less guilty & more cool if confronted again.  And assassinations go better with coke.

The back stairs are now dangerous.  He heads for the front stairs, either forgetting about his jacket or deciding that his jacket is a dead duck.

But just in case more dumb cops are entering along the corridor he goes via the office.

Damn, he meets Jeraldean Reid as she returns to her desk.  She says something as they pass & he mumbles something back.  Its not a good look.  He has no business in the office, unless wanting change for the coke machine. Its not even a short cut to the stairs. Damn.  Anyhow no big deal.

He goes down the front stairs & mixes with the growing throng in the lobby near the front door without raising any suspicion.

Someone asks him about a phone.

Ok, things aint so bad, praps he can take a chance & get his jacket from the Domino Room anyhow.

Hmmm – he can get his jacket by going out the front door & down the steps & around & entering via the Houston dock (like he does each morning), & walking 13 paces to the jacket. 

Getting caught walking in shouldn’t result in getting bitten by a cop.

So, off he goes, but he gets a little ways up Houston & he sees Officer Barnett on sentry duty at the dock, & Barnett looks vicious.

So, a quick U-turn & back down Houston.  Buell Frazier sees him walking south along Houston.

No, the jacket is a dead duck.  He decides to get out of there asap, he crosses Houston & then crosses Elm.

Tippit is waiting

https://www.flickr.com/photos/192566201@N05/52440424281/in/dateposted-public/

Edited October 20, 2022 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[Pat Speer]

57 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Mr. SAWYER. We got into the elevator. We run into this man ....... a man who I believed worked in the building.

This is right around 12:34

A minute before that, the mystery man could have been by the 4th floor elevator/ stairs

You'd think Belin would have been interested in a description of that man, that a police officer "ran" into, especially in those crucial minutes.

That's not what he said.

Mr. SAWYER. Immediately went into---well, talked to some of the officers around there who told me the story that they had thought some shots had come from one of the floors in the building, and I think the fifth floor was mentioned, but nobody seemed to know who the shots were directed at or what had actually happened, except there had been a shooting there at the time the President's motorcade had gone by. 
And I went with a couple of officers and a man who I believed worked in the building. The elevator was just to the right of the main entrance, and we went to the top floor, which was pointed out to me by this other man as being the floor that we were talking about. We had talked about the fifth floor. And we went back to the storage area and looked around and didn't see anything. 
Mr. BELIN. Now you took an elevator up, is that correct? 
Mr. SAWYER. That's right. 
Mr. BELIN. The route that you took to the elevator, you went to the front door? 
Mr. SAWYER. Right. 
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do? 
Mr. SAWYER. We got into the elevator. We run into this man. 
Mr. BELIN. Well, when you say you got into the elevator, where was the elevator as you walked in the front door? 
Mr. SAWYER. It was to the right. 

Notice how Belin avoids the question of who this man was like the plague. While Sawyer went upstairs with a man whom he believed worked in the building (almost certainly William Shelley) Belin refused to nail this down, because Shelley's presence at the front of the building at roughly 12:34 (after running around the outside of the building, and after calling his wife) supported Vickie Adams' recollection of seeing him at the back of the building within a minute or so of the shots. 

But notice as well that when Sawyer says "We run into this man" it's unclear what man he is talking about. I'd assumed he was backtracking a bit and referring to Shelley. But he could very well be saying someone came down in the elevator. If so, that is mighty curious. All of the men on the upper floors were accounted for, save Steven Wilson, who said nothing about coming down to the ground floor after the shooting. 

[Pat Speer]

57 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

Oswald gets to the 2nd floor after 48 sec.  He stops.  What to do next? 

Should he continue down to the first floor? 

Should he go to the first floor via the front stairs? 

Should he lay low in the lunch room? 

His jacket is in the Domino Room.

Uh Oh -- He hears Adams & Styles klomping down the stairs in a real hurry on a mission.

Best to visit the coke machine & hope that whoever it is goes clean past.

They pass. He comes back out. What to do next?

He can't decide.  He will be less conspicuous if he takes the front stairs, but he would then have to walk back into & throo the storage area to get his jacket in the Domino Room.

He decides to continue down the back stairs.

He makes a start but then Truly hollers up the elevator shaft, so he goes back up.

Then he hears Baker & Truly galloping up the stairs, & he retreats to the coke machine a second time.

He walks slow & cool. 

He would have been better off diving into the lunchroom in a hurry, & laying low, he knows there is no-one in there, but he knows that if seen rushing (by Truly & Co) it will be a sure sign that he is guilty of something.

He nearly makes it, another couple of slow steps & he will be out of sight.

But damn, Baker spots a bit of him throo the glass of the door & says to come back.

Truly says that Oswald works here, & Baker & Truly gallop off.

Oswald gets a coke to look less guilty & more cool if confronted again.  And assassinations go better with coke.

The back stairs are now dangerous.  He heads for the front stairs, either forgetting about his jacket or deciding that his jacket is a dead duck.

But just in case more dumb cops are entering along the corridor he goes via the office.

Damn, he meets Jeraldean Reid as she returns to her desk.  She says something as they pass & he mumbles something back.  Its not a good look.  He has no business in the office, unless wanting change for the coke machine. Its not even a short cut to the stairs. Damn.  Anyhow no big deal.

He goes down the front stairs & mixes with the growing throng in the lobby near the front door without raising any suspicion.

Someone asks him about a phone.

Ok, things aint so bad, praps he can take a chance & get his jacket from the Domino Room anyhow.

Hmmm – he can get his jacket by going out the front door & down the steps & around & entering via the Houston dock (like he does each morning), & walking 13 paces to the jacket. 

Getting caught walking in shouldn’t result in getting bitten by a cop.

So, off he goes, but he gets a little ways up Houston & he sees Officer Barnett on sentry duty at the dock, & Barnett looks vicious.

So, a quick U-turn & back down Houston.  Buell Frazier sees him walking south along Houston.

No, the jacket is a dead duck.  He decides to get out of there asap, he crosses Houston & then crosses Elm.

Tippit is waiting

That was an awesome jacket. 

[Matt Allison]

5 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Here's the picture I think you're referring to:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184773/

Probably is, as I now remember seeing such a pic in the 4 DAYS book, not Life mag

Edited October 20, 2022 by Matt Allison

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 10/17/2022 at 7:03 AM, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

I have been thinking about that one, the only thing I can come up with would be like "hearsay" ?  But the WC had been directing an leading all-the-way... so it would not have stopped them to at least explore it.  If Shelley could confirm thàt, they had the case in their pocket*  So many strange things, and even more questions never asked...  frustrating...

*Or... have Shelley sit in the room next to Wesley and Linnie, also taping bags... 

Jean Paul,

I believe that Ball's failure to ask Shelley about Dougherty's statement (about Shelley's alleged claim that "Oswald" brought a large package to work) was deliberate and very careful.

Many of us here suspect that Shelley played some role in setting up "Oswald" on at least some level. Ball may have been aware of similar suspicions and was not going there. Further, it is impossible that Dougherty made up that story out of the blue. It is highly likely that Shelley did indeed belatedly tell Dougherty about "Oswald's package".  (This is NOT to say that Shelley told Dougherty the truth.)

No. I think it is probable that Shelley lied to Dougherty to keep Dougherty in line, so to speak. If, as Pat Speer has demonstrated, at least one conspirator left the upper floors by way of the west freight elevator, while Dougherty really was on the first floor waiting to take an elevator up to go back to work, then it is almost certain that Jack Dougherty came face-to-face with an escaping assassin. 

Dougherty may or may not have been mildly retarded. But even so, he needed to be "reminded" of "Oswald's" guilt - and Shelley's belated remark to him would have been just the thing. 

But Ball didn't dare ask Shelley about "Oswald's" package because it never existed. "Oswald" did not enter the TSBD that morning with anything in his hands. Jack Dougherty himself said so!  No one saw him in the TSBD on that day or ever with anything resembling the infamous rifle bag. (Troy West explicitly denied that it was even theoretically possible for "Oswald" or anyone else to have constructed such a bag.)

If Ball had asked Shelley about Dougherty's statement, it is highly probable that Shelley would have perjured himself.

But Ball was stuck - he knew it wasn't true. And if he, Ball, took that testimony then he himself was guilty of suborning perjury, and risked disbarment!

Therefore Ball took the only out available to him - he did not ask Shelley about it. 

[Tony Krome]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

That's not what he said.

Mr. SAWYER. Immediately went into---well, talked to some of the officers around there who told me the story that they had thought some shots had come from one of the floors in the building, and I think the fifth floor was mentioned, but nobody seemed to know who the shots were directed at or what had actually happened, except there had been a shooting there at the time the President's motorcade had gone by. 
And I went with a couple of officers and a man who I believed worked in the building. The elevator was just to the right of the main entrance, and we went to the top floor, which was pointed out to me by this other man as being the floor that we were talking about. We had talked about the fifth floor. And we went back to the storage area and looked around and didn't see anything. 
Mr. BELIN. Now you took an elevator up, is that correct? 
Mr. SAWYER. That's right. 
Mr. BELIN. The route that you took to the elevator, you went to the front door? 
Mr. SAWYER. Right. 
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do? 
Mr. SAWYER. We got into the elevator. We run into this man. 
Mr. BELIN. Well, when you say you got into the elevator, where was the elevator as you walked in the front door? 
Mr. SAWYER. It was to the right. 

Notice how Belin avoids the question of who this man was like the plague. While Sawyer went upstairs with a man whom he believed worked in the building (almost certainly William Shelley) Belin refused to nail this down, because Shelley's presence at the front of the building at roughly 12:34 (after running around the outside of the building, and after calling his wife) supported Vickie Adams' recollection of seeing him at the back of the building within a minute or so of the shots. 

But notice as well that when Sawyer says "We run into this man" it's unclear what man he is talking about. I'd assumed he was backtracking a bit and referring to Shelley. But he could very well be saying someone came down in the elevator. If so, that is mighty curious. All of the men on the upper floors were accounted for, save Steven Wilson, who said nothing about coming down to the ground floor after the shooting. 

Shelley? Doubt it. 

Back to the other subject. You have the person who emerged from the west elevator on the 1st floor as avoiding Piper and exiting the west entrance. You also have this same person entering the west elevator on the 5th floor. You are suggesting this person had something do with the 6th floor at the time of the assassination. Is this your escape scenario?

Edited October 20, 2022 by Tony Krome