Is it plausible Bonnie Ray Williams was interrupted during his lunch, and ordered to leave the 6th floor ?

[Bill Brown]

On 10/27/2022 at 7:15 AM, Pete Mellor said:

Great thread this.

I've always suspected something surrounding Williams' story of eating his lunch on the 6th floor while the accused sniper is silently hiding behind his stack of boxes in the corner!  A ridiculous scenario!

 

My opinion:

 

Oswald was over on the west end of the sixth floor contemplating (at least briefly) shooting from the westernmost window on the south side.  Photos of the building taken that day show the southwestern windows opened.  Anyway, while Oswald is over on the west end of the floor, Williams appears on the floor and makes his way to the area of the southeast windows (the sniper's nest area).

 

So we have Williams at the southeast windows and we have Oswald at the southwest window.  This matches up with what Arnold Rowland said he saw, re: two men on the sixth floor and the one with the rifle over at the west end.

 

 

[Bill Fite]

On 10/27/2022 at 4:55 PM, Pat Speer said:

I suspect that Williams feared for his safety when he left his sixth floor visit out of his initial statement. I'm just not sure if he was more afraid of the police...or someone else...

 

I agree this seems reasonable.

 

[Guest]

Something I haven't figured out yet, the cart is (imo) in front of the 3rd window isle ?   

So there is 1 window - and a good number of piled up boxes - between the snipers nest and Williams.

Yet the first statements have leftovers on the boxes at the first window snipers nest (as far as I can tell).

Unless he ate part of it sitting on the cart, and another part on the boxes surrounding the snipers nest ?

I know there was some discussion as to where Williams leftovers were (all over the place according some statements...).      

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
saving space

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Something I haven't figured out yet, the cart is (imo) in front of the 3rd window isle ?   

So there is 1 window - and a good number of piled up boxes - between the snipers nest and Williams.

Yet the first statements have leftovers on the boxes at the first window snipers nest (as far as I can tell).

Unless he ate part of it sitting on the cart, and another part on the boxes surrounding the snipers nest ?

I know there was some discussion as to where Williams leftovers were (all over the place according some statements...).      

I think part of the confusion comes from the layout of the sniper' nest. I suspect many of those viewing it approached it from the west, along the front of the building. They saw the lunch and chicken bones and then a second later saw the sniper's nest, and connected the two, while those approaching the sniper's nest from the north did not. 

[Guest]

Very well possible.

I have read all sorts of explanations.   In an essay Don Thomas suggested :  "One clue as to what had happened is that when the crime scene detectives found them, the chicken bones were inside the lunch sack, suggesting that someone had tidied up the crime scene. By inference this person most likely would have been the hapless Captain Fritz, who arrived shortly before the crime scene detectives. The witnesses who arrived after Fritz saw the chicken lunch and pop bottle on the third aisle. All those witnesses who arrived ahead of Fritz saw the chicken bones scattered on the boxes in the sniper's nest."    

Now, anything goes with Fritz, but cleaning up a crime scene.... that's a bit over the top imo (however, nothing should surprise me anymore).

 

 

[Pete Mellor]

13 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

My opinion:  Oswald was over on the west end of the sixth floor contemplating (at least briefly) shooting from the westernmost window on the south side.  Photos of the building taken that day show the southwestern windows opened.  Anyway, while Oswald is over on the west end of the floor, Williams appears on the floor and makes his way to the area of the southeast windows (the sniper's nest area).

So we have Williams at the southeast windows and we have Oswald at the southwest window.  This matches up with what Arnold Rowland said he saw, re: two men on the sixth floor and the one with the rifle over at the west end.

Bill, It's a hotchpotch for certain!  I've always thought that the west end was a far more logical location to shoot from, greater field of view, no tree obscuring and not as cramped and awkward for a right-handed shooter as the SE corner and easier to be concealed, when shooting in the kill zone, from witnesses in the plaza.

What to think of Johnny Powell & his fellow inmates viewing on a level with the 6th floor seeing two men, one adjusting the scope of a rifle.  The two men in the window across the street 'looked darker' than whites and were wearing 'kind of brownish looking or duller clothes...like work clothes' Powell said. Another description of a heavy set man in a tan or brown suit, which matches Carolyn Walthers & Price's descriptions

At the same time we have Carolyn Arnold around 12:25 as she was heading out to watch the parade, she stated she saw Oswald on the 2nd floor near the lunchroom.  Also, Carolyn Arnold claimed to see Oswald on the 1st floor only a few minutes before the shots rang out.

We all have our opinions, which are:-a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

 

[Bill Brown]

9 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

I've always thought that the west end was a far more logical location to shoot from, greater field of view, no tree obscuring and not as cramped and awkward for a right-handed shooter as the SE corner and easier to be concealed, when shooting in the kill zone, from witnesses in the plaza.

 

I disagree.  From the sniper's nest window, the target (the limo) would be moving away from the shooter in almost a straight line.  The target is getting smaller with each passing second but is moving away from the shooter in (pretty much) a straight line.

 

From the west end, the target (the limo) is moving much more drastically from left to right, as opposed to moving away in a straight line.  This left to right movement of the target makes for a much tougher shot, for sure.

 

[Mark Knight]

4 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

I disagree.  From the sniper's nest window, the target (the limo) would be moving away from the shooter in almost a straight line.  The target is getting smaller with each passing second but is moving away from the shooter in (pretty much) a straight line.

 

From the west end, the target (the limo) is moving much more drastically from left to right, as opposed to moving away in a straight line.  This left to right movement of the target makes for a much tougher shot, for sure.

 

As a deer hunter and a right-handed shooter, I disagree. It's much harder for me to hit a target [deer, in my case] moving away in a straight line than it is to hit one moving from left to right. In fact, left to right is a preferred because trajectory [bullet rise/drop] is less of a factor than when shooting a target moving away in a straight line. Left to right reduces the effect of swerving by the target [deer or vehicle].

Your mileage may vary but left to right is my preferred shot at a moving target.

[Bill Brown]

2 hours ago, Mark Knight said:

As a deer hunter and a right-handed shooter, I disagree. It's much harder for me to hit a target [deer, in my case] moving away in a straight line than it is to hit one moving from left to right. In fact, left to right is a preferred because trajectory [bullet rise/drop] is less of a factor than when shooting a target moving away in a straight line. Left to right reduces the effect of swerving by the target [deer or vehicle].

Your mileage may vary but left to right is my preferred shot at a moving target.

 

Well, for starters, I think we all can agree, when referring to shooting deer, that left to right is preferred over moving away in a straight line because the deer, when moving left to right, provides a much greater target than it would if it were running away from you in a straight line.

 

This same idea does not apply to the human head, however.

 

As for your other point, trajectory is hardly a factor at 88 yards and under.

 

Just my opinion, though.

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Bill Brown

[Pat Speer]

On 10/28/2022 at 4:39 AM, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Interludium on Day and the fingerprints (just to include this in the topic) 

 

Thanks for the reminder. Day said Oswald's prints weren't on the bottle. This strongly suggests that he found prints--that were not Oswald's. So where is the report on this? 

That no such report exists, and no subsequent report exists matching Williams' prints to the bottle, tells me that the DPD got rid of the bottle once they realized they couldn't link it to Oswald. So what else did they destroy or make disappear that couldn't be linked to Oswald? 

 

[John Deignan]

What about Tom Alyea always saying the bottle and chicken bones were found on the fifth floor?