The Killing Floor

[Pete Mellor]

23 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Not to belabor a point, but if the elevator cables were moving, then LHO would have had enough time to have simply preceded the women down the stairs. 

Ben, let's hear it from Geraldine Reid, "I was threatened to keep my mouth shut, or else."

About one minute before the fatal shots were fired at the motorcade, Lee Oswald walked into the office across the 2nd floor hallway.  He wanted to buy a bottle of soda and did not have the required change for the machine.  He walked up to Geraldine Reid at her desk and handed her a dollar bill and asked her for change.

"As I was counting out the change, I heard what I later learned were gunshots.  Mr Oswald and I looked at each other quizzically for a moment, but neither of us said anything about the sounds.  I did not know that they were shots at the time.  I gave Mr Oswald the change and he turned and walked back into the hallway toward the snack room "

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Another guy with a snub-nose .38 on the Grassy Knoll provided diversion. 

Diversion?  JFK's head X-Ray shows the tiny metallic fragments from the flightpath of a projectile almost the entire length of the skull.  These debris deposits had to have come from a bullet (certainly not a full metal jacketed round) transiting Kennedy's head on a front-to-back trajectory.

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

And LHO was in trouble--he was soon murdered for what he knew. 

No need to murder LHO is he knew nothing. 

Maybe, or maybe not.  When Ruby snuffed out Oswald there was to be no court case, so his framing could be completed by Warren etc.

I look forward to the targeted release date of John Orr's DP3D documentary, set for the 60th anniversary in 2023.  It will certainly discard the stupid 'single bullet nonsense' with modern state-of-the-art use of laser scanning, photogrammetry and 3D imaging technologies that promise to provide surprising results to point to the origins of shots to both Kennedy and Connally.

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Pete Mellor said:

Ben, let's hear it from Geraldine Reid, "I was threatened to keep my mouth shut, or else."

About one minute before the fatal shots were fired at the motorcade, Lee Oswald walked into the office across the 2nd floor hallway.  He wanted to buy a bottle of soda and did not have the required change for the machine.  He walked up to Geraldine Reid at her desk and handed her a dollar bill and asked her for change.

"As I was counting out the change, I heard what I later learned were gunshots.  Mr Oswald and I looked at each other quizzically for a moment, but neither of us said anything about the sounds.  I did not know that they were shots at the time.  I gave Mr Oswald the change and he turned and walked back into the hallway toward the snack room "

Diversion?  JFK's head X-Ray shows the tiny metallic fragments from the flightpath of a projectile almost the entire length of the skull.  These debris deposits had to have come from a bullet (certainly not a full metal jacketed round) transiting Kennedy's head on a front-to-back trajectory.

Maybe, or maybe not.  When Ruby snuffed out Oswald there was to be no court case, so his framing could be completed by Warren etc.

I look forward to the targeted release date of John Orr's DP3D documentary, set for the 60th anniversary in 2023.  It will certainly discard the stupid 'single bullet nonsense' with modern state-of-the-art use of laser scanning, photogrammetry and 3D imaging technologies that promise to provide surprising results to point to the origins of shots to both Kennedy and Connally.

PM--

Is there anything more agonizing than unrecorded interviews with JFK  witnesses?

I cast no aspersions on anyone. The quote from G. Reid was made decades after the event, and unrecorded. Not even a stenographer, court reporter or public notary was present. 

Unfortunately, by this standard, almost anything has been said by a JFK witness. We can quote people who said they were alongside the Third Street Underpass with a bomb for use if the shots failed. 

Was Reid stable? I don't know. 

...

On the gunshots, yes I think the GK was a smoke-and-bang show, for diversion. That's still a conspiracy, btw.

I am a little bit following Pat Speer's lead on this one, and he says shots were from behind. 

For me, the timing, not the direction, is the important stuff. 

JBC is shot ~Z 295 and JFK at Z-313. That is less than one second apart. Not possible for one gunman with a single-shot bolt action rifle. 

For me, the decades- and decades-long arguments about front vs. back are a dead end. You have smart people arguing both ways.  

----

I suppose what you say could be true: Even though LHO was totally uninvolved in the JFKA (though LHO was a CIA asset and the JFKA was likely a CIA hit) LHO was rubbed out anyway. 

The innocent LHO, not knowing a scintilla about the JFKA, then went home and got a gun, even taking a taxi. Then, on the very afternoon that JFKA was shot, LHO went to see a movie. By himself. Armed. And approached people in the theater in an odd manner. 

Maybe so.

On the hand, maybe LHO was involved in the JFKA up to his eyeballs, and if he talked he would name enough names and enough of a verifiable story....that he had to be done in.  That's my guess. 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/groden-robert-absolute-proof

Well...Geraldine was interesting....

[Pete Mellor]

9 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

PM--

Is there anything more agonizing than unrecorded interviews with JFK  witnesses?

I cast no aspersions on anyone. The quote from G. Reid was made decades after the event, and unrecorded. Not even a stenographer, court reporter or public notary was present. 

B.C. I have just been reading the book 'Case Not Closed' by Canadian researcher Dave O'Brien which contains the Robert Groden quote concerning a Geraldine Reid giving change to LHO at the time of the shooting.  Apologies.  The story is total BS. from Groden, as covered by Jim's article on K's & K.  At the time of the shooting the only person in the 2nd floor office was Geneva Hine, she stated that she knew who Oswald was, but he was NOT seen by her in the 2nd floor office on the 22nd.  Mrs Reid was outside watching the parade and only returned to the 2nd floor office after the shooting with Mr Williams, Molina, Martha Reed, Sarah Stanton and Mr Campbell.

10 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

For me, the decades- and decades-long arguments about front vs. back are a dead end. You have smart people arguing both ways.  

We'll agree to disagree on this.  I'll go with the strong convictions of people like Mantik & Chesser with what they see on the autopsy X-Rays re front to back snowstorm of tiny fragments in the skull and the rear occipital blowout.

[Gene Kelly]

Sandy

I got the idea of Shelley 'helping' Oswald leave the building (but actually setting him up) from reading several accounts:  

1. "Important to Hold That Man" by Jerry Rose (May 1986) 
2. Barry Earnst's "Accidental History: The Girl on the Stairs" (summarized in Kennedy's and King) 
3. Bart Kamp's “Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter (April 2017)
4. William Weston's “The CIA and the Texas School Book Depository”. (April 2020 in Kennedys and King)
5. John Armstrong's articles “Escape from the 6th Floor” and “Oswald Did Not Run Down the Stairs” on his website

Armstrong's belief is that the three men seen by NBC news reporter Robert MacNeil - who came into the TSBD in those early minutes - were Shelley, Lovelady, and Oswald. MacNeil reported seeing a man using the pay phone (likely Shelley) who in an affidavit made that same afternoon said:

"I went back into the building [from outside where he viewed the shooting of the president] and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened."

One wonders if it was actually Shelley's wife whom he called (seems fishy to me) ...  perhaps it was Tippit or Westbrook. Armstrong then posits that Oswald picked up his jacket from the domino room and was escorted out the rear of the building by Shelley. Oswald was seen a minute later by Wesley Frazier as he walked down the steps from the loading dock, and then walked south on Houston toward Elm St. A few minutes later, Shelley met and escorted police to the upper floors, described in his affidavit. Armstrong wrote the following in his "Escape from the 6th Floor" piece:

Oswald did not realize that Shelley knew that he (HARVEY Oswald) would be arrested and charged with killing the President of the United States. Not only did Shelley deny being with Oswald, but it was also very likely Shelley who directed Oswald to leave the TSBD, board the Marsalis bus (#433), and meet a contact at the Texas Theater. After the shooting someone instructed Oswald to go to the Texas Theater, and someone gave Oswald the halves of two one-dollar bills that would likely be used to confirm his contact. If not Shelley, then who? 

In assessing all of the sources, and following this EF thread closely, it seemed plausible to me that Shelley helped Oswald leave by the rear building loading dock, on his journey to the patsy trap. Not long after Oswald departed from the scene, Shelley told Truly that Oswald was missing. Truly notified Captain Fritz, who immediately thought that it was "important to hold that man.”  Shelley was also suspiciously lingering in the rear of the building in the immediate aftermath ("guarding the elevator") ... and he subsequently changed his story several times about leaving the building and going down to the railroad tracks. 

Officer Marion Baker came in through the front door and met Roy Truly and saw two white men sitting by the stairs. Truly paused to tell Shelley to guard the stairs and elevators (ostensibly to make sure no one used them). The paradox about this scenario is explained in William Weston's 2020 article.  During Barry Earnst's 2002 interviews with Vickie Adams and Sandy Styles, they both told Barry that they did not see either Shelly or Lovelady when they descended from the fourth floor to the first. Their story rings true to me, and I believe the S&L encounter was a false construct prompted by the Warren Commission attorneys. William Weston goes on further to say that this WC construct likely included coaxing Shelly and Lovelady into making an ersatz trip across the street to the railroad yards, before their return to the TSBD, at which time they allegedly saw Styles and Adams.

Gene

 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

B.C. I have just been reading the book 'Case Not Closed' by Canadian researcher Dave O'Brien which contains the Robert Groden quote concerning a Geraldine Reid giving change to LHO at the time of the shooting.  Apologies.  The story is total BS. from Groden, as covered by Jim's article on K's & K.  At the time of the shooting the only person in the 2nd floor office was Geneva Hine, she stated that she knew who Oswald was, but he was NOT seen by her in the 2nd floor office on the 22nd.  Mrs Reid was outside watching the parade and only returned to the 2nd floor office after the shooting with Mr Williams, Molina, Martha Reed, Sarah Stanton and Mr Campbell.

We'll agree to disagree on this.  I'll go with the strong convictions of people like Mantik & Chesser with what they see on the autopsy X-Rays re front to back snowstorm of tiny fragments in the skull and the rear occipital blowout.

Fair enough. In the Z-film it sure looks like JFK is struck from the front/right, and maybe he was. 

For me, based on JBC's testimony (especially about being pushed forward by that bullet struck him) it even more looks like JBC was struck ~Z295 and JFK at Z313. IMHO, this is indisputable. 

OK, that is less than one second. 

Ergo, more than one gunman. Ergo conspiracy. Also, the GK gunsel, diversionary or otherwise. 

Dudes, this was a conspiracy. No need to exonerate or vilify LHO.

There was a conspiracy and the WC covered it up and made LHO into the leftie, loser, loner gunman. 

[Pete Mellor]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Fair enough. In the Z-film it sure looks like JFK is struck from the front/right, and maybe he was. 

B.C. I have mentioned that it is the medical evidence that predominately convinces me of 'right/front' hit or hits.  However, there is also the Z image of JFK's limp body back and to the left as well as Hargis' splatter which just does not jibe with me for rear gunshots.

On JBC's wounds- I suspect many will be surprised at the results of John Orr's DP3D probe!  Look forward to that.

[Sandy Larsen]

9 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Sandy

I got the idea of Shelley 'helping' Oswald leave the building (but actually setting him up) from reading several accounts:  

1. "Important to Hold That Man" by Jerry Rose (May 1986) 
2. Barry Earnst's "Accidental History: The Girl on the Stairs" (summarized in Kennedy's and King) 
3. Bart Kamp's “Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter (April 2017)
4. William Weston's “The CIA and the Texas School Book Depository”. (April 2020 in Kennedys and King)
5. John Armstrong's articles “Escape from the 6th Floor” and “Oswald Did Not Run Down the Stairs” on his website

Armstrong's belief is that the three men seen by NBC news reporter Robert MacNeil - who came into the TSBD in those early minutes - were Shelley, Lovelady, and Oswald. MacNeil reported seeing a man using the pay phone (likely Shelley) who in an affidavit made that same afternoon said:

"I went back into the building [from outside where he viewed the shooting of the president] and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened."

One wonders if it was actually Shelley's wife whom he called (seems fishy to me) ...  perhaps it was Tippit or Westbrook. Armstrong then posits that Oswald picked up his jacket from the domino room and was escorted out the rear of the building by Shelley. Oswald was seen a minute later by Wesley Frazier as he walked down the steps from the loading dock, and then walked south on Houston toward Elm St. A few minutes later, Shelley met and escorted police to the upper floors, described in his affidavit. Armstrong wrote the following in his "Escape from the 6th Floor" piece:

Oswald did not realize that Shelley knew that he (HARVEY Oswald) would be arrested and charged with killing the President of the United States. Not only did Shelley deny being with Oswald, but it was also very likely Shelley who directed Oswald to leave the TSBD, board the Marsalis bus (#433), and meet a contact at the Texas Theater. After the shooting someone instructed Oswald to go to the Texas Theater, and someone gave Oswald the halves of two one-dollar bills that would likely be used to confirm his contact. If not Shelley, then who? 

In assessing all of the sources, and following this EF thread closely, it seemed plausible to me that Shelley helped Oswald leave by the rear building loading dock, on his journey to the patsy trap. Not long after Oswald departed from the scene, Shelley told Truly that Oswald was missing. Truly notified Captain Fritz, who immediately thought that it was "important to hold that man.”  Shelley was also suspiciously lingering in the rear of the building in the immediate aftermath ("guarding the elevator") ... and he subsequently changed his story several times about leaving the building and going down to the railroad tracks. 

Officer Marion Baker came in through the front door and met Roy Truly and saw two white men sitting by the stairs. Truly paused to tell Shelley to guard the stairs and elevators (ostensibly to make sure no one used them). The paradox about this scenario is explained in William Weston's 2020 article.  During Barry Earnst's 2002 interviews with Vickie Adams and Sandy Styles, they both told Barry that they did not see either Shelly or Lovelady when they descended from the fourth floor to the first. Their story rings true to me, and I believe the S&L encounter was a false construct prompted by the Warren Commission attorneys. William Weston goes on further to say that this WC construct likely included coaxing Shelly and Lovelady into making an ersatz trip across the street to the railroad yards, before their return to the TSBD, at which time they allegedly saw Styles and Adams.

Gene

 

Thanks Gene.

 

9 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

William Weston goes on further to say that this WC construct likely included coaxing Shelly and Lovelady into making an ersatz trip across the street to the railroad yards, before their return to the TSBD, at which time they allegedly saw Styles and Adams.

 

I thought I was the only one who believes that Shelley's and Lovelady's story about walking back to the railroad yard was a fabrication. I see here that William Weston believes the same.

Nice to know I'm not alone.

 

[Gene Kelly]

Sandy

FWIW, I do not believe that Oswald got that job in the TSBD randomly, by chance. Not with everything that we now know about his short life, and Ruth Paine's intersection in it. And the auspicious owners of the building, and some of its workers (e.g., Arce, Shelley). And the fact that the location was moved in the summer of 1963, into a well-planned ambush or killing zone.

Mathematicians define coincidence as “a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection.” Psychologists characterize a coincidence as being in the eye of the beholder. Statistics alone do not explain it any further than chance, so random is not enough of an explanation for me.  We use rational process to learn cause and effect. We look for patterns, and weigh whether it seems likelier that the event was caused by chance, or by something else ... we draw inferences from patterns.

In this Book Depository case, the coincidence in question falls in a realm between being certain that something is false and being certain that something is true ... and if enough suspicious coincidences of a certain nature pile up, uncertainty can cross over into belief.  This is how we sometimes stumble into scientific discoveries ... these types of coincidences alert us to the "mysterious hiding in plain sight.” (Ref: Julie Beck (Feb. 2016) "Coincidences and the Meaning of Life" The Atlantic.)

Gene

[Paul Brancato]

Gene - I’m beginning to wonder about Shelley. First there is the sighting of him or a lookalike in New Orleans with Oswald. Then there are the inconsistencies in his supposed post assassination movements and statements. I think it’s time to ponder whether Shelley helped place Oswald in the TSBD. That wouldn’t be hard to imagine. Frazier could have been put to the task by Shelley, and if that actually happened it’s doubtful that Frazier would ever mention it. All that has to be assumed in order to make this believable is prior associations with Oswald, as in New Orleans, and some kind of CIA link with Shelley, for which there is suggestive evidence. 

[Joe Bauer]

36 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

Gene - I’m beginning to wonder about Shelley. First there is the sighting of him or a lookalike in New Orleans with Oswald. Then there are the inconsistencies in his supposed post assassination movements and statements. I think it’s time to ponder whether Shelley helped place Oswald in the TSBD. That wouldn’t be hard to imagine. Frazier could have been put to the task by Shelley, and if that actually happened it’s doubtful that Frazier would ever mention it. All that has to be assumed in order to make this believable is prior associations with Oswald, as in New Orleans, and some kind of CIA link with Shelley, for which there is suggestive evidence. 

Wonder if Shelley might have had a hand in watching the elevators during JFK's limo drive by or someone cutting off the power to them?

 

[Joe Bauer]

Oswald's escape run turn off into the 2nd floor lunch room has always intrigued me.

If it was a split-second impulse evasion and location alibi maneuver it was remarkably quick-on-one's-feet clever.

And he even enhanced it's diversion effect by buying a machine dispensed Dr. Pepper soda pop and sipping this as big burly DPD officer Marion Baker burst in wide-eyed with aimed revolver yelling..."DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?" 

Oswald's calmness from that point to his casual descent down to the first floor and walking around in the front lobby ( even guiding news journalist Robert McNeil to a wall phone) is again, so thoroughly pronounced and well acted it's surreally confounding.

The man supposedly just blew the President of the United States head off!

In front of hundreds of bystanders and dozens of hugely armed security forces who he knew were seconds away from blowing him away!

One would think that anyone committing such a mind blowing irrational violent and own life risking act like that would act just as irrationally and desperately in running away to escape from his feared fate of being ripped apart by his captors.

Yet, Oswald was as cool, calm and collected in his life and death escape run as a highly trained and practiced professional hit man, or someone on sedatives like valium?

When LBJ protege Malcolm Wallace blew away Austin Texas Pitch And Putt golf course owner John Douglas Kinser in broad daylight in front of eye witnesses he took off so desperately and thoughtlessly he was easily spotted and caught within minutes. He was drunk. He had to liquor himself up to do something so crazy like cold blooded murder.

Oswald supposedly carried out a million times more dangerous, risky and important murder, again in broad daylight and with hundreds of eye witnesses, and he didn't need to be liquored up. He then skips away, stops to refresh himself with a cool Doctor Pepper soda pop...and then casually walks away from that and the 1st floor lobby scene to catch a bus and then after the bus is stalled in traffic, he Southern Gentlemanly lets a damsel in destress have the first cab he hails and then takes a second one home? And even tells the driver to keep the nickel change!

Oswald is just too cool in the entire story here.

He was also too cool when he was jumped and slapped around by hot headed shouting Carlos Bringuier and his boys during his New Orleans leaflet passing in August. Too cool in his dust up incident New Orleans radio and TV appearances as well.

Oswald just doesn't fit the usual mental state model of extreme political activists and crazed nut murderers.

To a degree that just adds to the suspicious mystery of it all. He's so cool he seems professionally trained imo.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Sandy

FWIW, I do not believe that Oswald got that job in the TSBD randomly, by chance. Not with everything that we now know about his short life, and Ruth Paine's intersection in it. And the auspicious owners of the building, and some of its workers (e.g., Arce, Shelley). And the fact that the location was moved in the summer of 1963, into a well-planned ambush or killing zone.

Mathematicians define coincidence as “a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection.” Psychologists characterize a coincidence as being in the eye of the beholder. Statistics alone do not explain it any further than chance, so random is not enough of an explanation for me.  We use rational process to learn cause and effect. We look for patterns, and weigh whether it seems likelier that the event was caused by chance, or by something else ... we draw inferences from patterns.

In this Book Depository case, the coincidence in question falls in a realm between being certain that something is false and being certain that something is true ... and if enough suspicious coincidences of a certain nature pile up, uncertainty can cross over into belief.  This is how we sometimes stumble into scientific discoveries ... these types of coincidences alert us to the "mysterious hiding in plain sight.” (Ref: Julie Beck (Feb. 2016) "Coincidences and the Meaning of Life" The Atlantic.)

Gene

 

Gene,

Thanks for your comments. From one engineer to another.

(I do believe you're an engineer. If not.. oops!)

 

[Ron Ege]

On 10/26/2022 at 11:03 AM, Pat Speer said:

The power outage happened minutes later, not right after the shooting. 

Not to belabor the point, but Truly said he looked and there was no elevator on the second floor. So, no, Oswald could not have taken the elevator down. As far as racing down...of course Adams and Styles could have been wrong. Everyone could be wrong. But in this case we have Garner backing them up in that they went down well before Baker and Truly came up. And this makes for a very narrow window in which Oswald could have preceded them down the stairs. And besides, any plot involving Oswald would not use him as a shooter. He was a mediocre marksman who hadn't practiced in months, if at all, with that rifle. It makes far more sense to suspect someone else was the shooter, and that Oswald played some other role. 

Pat, thank you.  I believe you're absolutely spot on.

Anyone with even a modicum of shooting experience (especially one picking presidential assassins) would NOT select Oswald as a shooter.  Given Oswald's dearth of experience with a bolt action rifle (antiquated/decrepit as it was), if he were to have been actually selected to make a "kill shot", he simply could not have been trusted to even hit "the broad side of a barn" - let alone the two shots he was alleged to have made.  What would be the point, then?

And why would anyone even trust Oswald to purposely miss/make a diversion shot, as some have suggested?  There is nothing in his history to suggest that he would make a great choice as anything approaching that of a pretend, would-be "mechanic" - in an actual presidential assassination plot or even a false flag operation.  Even that would require a decent skillset that Oswald never demonstrated - to my knowledge, anyway.  

By all accounts, Ozzie was bookish, basically a self-perceived quasi-intellectual, "paper pusher" type of guy.  Sure, as a low-level intel operative/FBi informant he did seemingly demonstrate acceptable performance in that role, given his retention as such.  

Oswald, perhaps, could have had some peripheral knowledge of maybe what he perceived to be just a "conceptual" assassination plot.  When the shooting occurred, he "put two and two together" and realized he'd "been had".

Given what we now know, much thanks to many here for their herculean efforts over the past decades, ordering the rifle, a "very doubtful, possible maybe".  That's another discussion.

I agree - shooting one that day - just doesn't wash.

[Gene Kelly]

Sandy

Nuclear engineer for the last 40+ years ... undergraduate in physics.  Led plenty of investigations (technical in nature) in my time.  Used various root cause techniques.  Worked previously for the government as an inspector. More recently in risk management (hence the probability/statistics comment).  If one uses Bayesian mathematical techniques to analyze Ruth Paine's "coincidences" and Oswald's timely appearance as a stocking clerk at the TSBD, it doesn't pass what we call in my business as the "red-faced" test.

Gene